Passion for football has been handed down through generations in my family. My grandfather first purchased Philadelphia Eagles season tickets in 1948. He passed them down to my father who, in turn, passed them down to me. So I have seen my share of serious football injuries up close.

But when San Diego Chargers wide receiver Malcolm Floyd lay motionless for almost 20 minutes during the Eagles home opener last month, it held a special resonance for me.

After covering the NFL concussion lawsuits for much of the past year, I had begun work on a story about similar class actions brought against the NCAA by former players. The finished product (subscription required) appears in Friday’s print edition. As medical personnel tended to Floyd while concerned teammates and opponents huddled around, I reflected back 31 years ago when I witnessed one of my childhood heroes, Howard Cosell, broadcast his last professional boxing match.

It was Nov. 26, 1982 just weeks after South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim died following a match against Ray Mancini. Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes savagely pummeled challenger Randall “Tex” Cobb while Cosell was horrified that the referee chose not to stop the one-sided bout and angrily announced on live television that he would no longer be associated with the sport that made him famous.

More than three decades later, boxing has degenerated from one of the nation’s most popular sports to the fringes of mainstream culture where most people have no idea who holds the heavyweight championship. Part of the reason is that more information became available about the debilitating effects that the sport had on some of its greatest champions.

As Floyd was carted off the field on a stretcher, I wondered if 50 years from now, our descendents will view football the same way that many currently view boxing.

It’s hard to envision the nation’s most popular sport suffering the same decline as boxing. The NFL generates more than $10 billion in annual revenues and NCAA football is also a cash cow. But then again, if you went in a time machine and asked people in 1963 if boxing would be in its current state, they might have a hard time wrapping their heads around that.

I asked some of the nation’s pre-eminent sports business scholars for their views about the sport’s future. None could see the NFL or top level NCAA football waning much in popularity. But lesser programs that don’t generate as much television revenue and could be forced to conduct some serious cost/benefit analyses if insurance and equipment costs rise and youth and high school participation declines.

The flip side is that even if it is not a national power, football programs generate significant goodwill around campuses as many consider it the best possible advertising for a college. Bookstores sell more apparel. Alumni become more engaged. Admissions departments receive more applications.

Warren Zola, assistant dean for graduate programs at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, said he does not think lawsuits demanding medical monitoring of former players will present such a financial burden that schools will drop the sport. But if the sport is redefined as more violent over time, attitudes could change.

“Boxing didn’t die because of the price or cost of insurance,” Zola said. “It was because the public no longer enjoyed it because of the knowledge about the effects of head injuries in that brutal sport.”

Joel Maxcy, an associate professor of sport and recreation management at Temple University, said he does not think the lawsuits or the negative publicity the sport has suffered will cause many football programs to fall by the wayside.

“The NCAA has pretty deep pockets,” Maxcy said. “The plaintiffs want money now and the NCAA wants bad publicity to go away. So both are motivated to settle now. On the other hand, long-term insurance costs rise, programs on the margins might re-consider their status ... I’m thinking about lower-level Division I and Division II and III programs. The other thing would be participation in youth and high school football. Parents could have second thoughts and that could make it harder to field teams.”

Bill Zwaan, in his 11th year as head coach of West Chester University’s Division II football team, said the biggest issue with concussions has been the past treatment of the injury as players often continued to play after suffering repeated head trauma. But he thinks college teams are now treating these injuries with more caution and have stepped up education for trainers, coaches and players.

“For Division II and III, cost is a factor, as insurance costs go up, some schools will have to evaluate whether their program is worth keeping,” Zwaan said. “But those will be few and far between and will most likely occur during this period of uncertainty. But once we get things under control, I think things will be OK.”

Al Bellamy was an athletic trainer in the NFL for 25 years before becoming director of athletic training for football at Temple University this year. He said his staff makes sure players and coaches are educated on how to detect concussions and are instructed to alert trainers if they suspect another player is having a problem. Coaches also emphasize proper tackling techniques and require players wear a protective layer over their helmets during practices.

Zwaan said West Chester stresses many of the same things. The program found the money to upgrade its helmets this year. When asked about the comparison between football and boxing, Zwaan noted that Mixed Martial Arts has grown exponentially, especially with its youth focus and web presence.

“So boxing has come back in a different style,” Zwaan said.

He raises a good point. But MMA is not offered as an NCAA sport. Author Malcolm Gladwell, who has called for a boycott of college football, received some push back when he brought that message earlier this year to the University of Pennsylvania, which dealt with the 2010 suicide death of 21-year-old Owen Thomas — who was diagnosed postmortem as being in the early stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease that has been linked to depression and impulse control in many football players.

Despite the negative publicity from concussions, football is as popular as ever. There is no danger of turning on your television in the Autumn weekends of the foreseeable future and not seeing the sport played in packed stadiums around this country. Perhaps better education, medical treatment, equipment and tackling technique instruction will make the game safer for young people. Or maybe public sentiment toward the sport will not devolve like it did with boxing.

But there clearly is a problem. Enough of a problem that you have to at least contemplate whether future generations will share our passion for football.